


Interlude

by Roselightfairy



Series: Finding a Voice [2]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Skinny Dipping, anxious!Legolas (background), non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: A moment in the Golden Wood, set during my longer story "Finding a Voice."Days into their new friendship, Legolas and Gimli go on a late-night stroll and talk about elves, dwarves, beauty, and home.





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> Oops. I didn't mean for this to happen. (I feel like I say that a lot.) There is so much else that I should be working on, but . . . this happened, and how could I say no?
> 
> Takes place between chapters 8 and 9 of my story "Finding a Voice." You probably don't need to read that in order for this to make sense, as long as you're aware that I'm working with the characterization of Legolas as having social anxiety.

“Gimli.”

Gimli did not know how many times the whisper of his name glided through his dream before finally pulling him to wakefulness, but he thought it was more than once.  Disoriented at first, not certain where he was, he managed to open his eyes – and started as they met another pair just inches away.

“Gimli,” came the whisper again.  “Wake up.”

Gimli was certainly awake now, having practically somersaulted backwards in sudden shock.  “Master Legolas!” he sputtered, only just awake enough to realize he should keep his voice down.  “What are you – I thought you were away with your kin?”

“I was exploring,” Legolas whispered, settling cross-legged in front of Gimli; Gimli pulled himself into a half-sitting position to see him better.  The elf’s eyes gleamed in the little light available.  “I found the most beautiful sight, and I wished to share it with you.”

“You were exploring?”  They had done their fair share of wandering during the day, it was true, but – “At this time of night?”

Legolas frowned.  “It is dark, to be sure, but the moon is full and the stars are like beacons.  And besides, many things can be seen under the dark of night that would go unnoticed in the light of day.  Why would I not?”

“I mean” – It was, he realized, something he had never thought to learn.  Legolas had rested with the others, or so he thought – he took more watches than most others did, but Gimli had thought that that strange open-eyed repose was what passed for sleep among the elves: at least, Aragorn and Gandalf had led him to believe that.  But perhaps he had been mistaken.  “Do you elves not need to sleep at all?”

“Yes, of course, but not as often as mortals, and – here, rarely at all.”  He made a strange jerk, as if to speak more, but then seemed to cut himself off.  “I would not disturb your sleep, were this not truly important, but the beauty is singular and unmatched, Gimli.  You must come see it!”  His words sounded certain but Gimli noted the tentativeness in his hand as he reached out, the light touch as his fingers came to rest on Gimli’s.  Was reminded again how much Legolas braved, every time he even spoke to Gimli.

And he was awake now, anyway.  He heaved a falsely reluctant sigh.  “Very well, if you insist on dragging me away from my bed, Master Elf,” he said.  “But I expect this sight to be worthy compensation.”

“You will not be disappointed,” promised Legolas.  He closed his fingers around Gimli’s and tugged him upright, and Gimli allowed it.

Gimli had flatly refused to sleep in a tree, so the elves of Lothlorien had given him a bed on the ground instead, in the midst of the small group of flets where the rest of the Fellowship slept. The hobbits shared one, and Aragorn and Boromir another.  Legolas had a bed in that flet as well, but as far as Gimli knew he had never used it.  He had often left them in the evening, and Gimli had assumed he was sleeping instead among his kin – but if tonight was any indication, perhaps Legolas had spent the majority of his nights alone.

Gimli did not know why that thought gave him such a pang.  He knew that it need not be a saddening thought: there were many among the dwarves, even among his own friends, who preferred solitude to company, but regardless it was a state that Gimli had never understood. Dwarves were private among strangers, to be sure, but among their friends and kin they need hide nothing if they did not wish to, and Gimli had never understood the desire.

“Have you been doing this all these nights, then?” he asked.  “Exploring?”

“Exploring, and thinking.”  Legolas’s outline was hard to make out in the darkness of the forest, even for Gimli’s sharp night-eyes.  He moved almost like an animal: seeming to flow from the outline of one tree to the next, a mere shadow in the darkness, and Gimli could see how he would blend into the foliage perfectly in the moments he was still.  “This forest is so like my home, and yet so unlike, and I would not waste a moment of my time among the trees.”

“ _Like_ your home?” Gimli did not intend the surprise, but he had heard stories of Mirkwood: the dark, menacing outlines of trees, the stalking shapes you could make out in the distance, the unnatural-seeming fog that shrouded their full outlines from being seen.  The twisting, winding pathways that were impossible to hold to, rivers with murky and bewitched water, and the oppressive terror that loomed over all.  Looking around at the glory of Lothlorien, the trees that shimmered silver under the moonlight and gentle whisper of the wind through the branches, it was hard to see a similarity.

Legolas looked over at him, and his face was sad.  “You would not have heard of the beauty of my home forest,” he said, eyes glinting with insight that surprised Gimli.  “To be sure, your people did not see the loveliness – but it is there, Gimli.  Closer to our palace, where our ways are worn into the forest, it is not so different from Lothlorien – the power comes from a different source, to be sure, but the trees speak to us with the same familiarity as these mallorns, and their beauty is a different sort, but it is still there.  And there are streams throughout the forest, winding in tiny trickles into larger creeks, singing with playful voices.  The forest is watchful, but there can be beauty in that watchfulness as well – it is never silent: the plants and animals and elves all whisper to one another of danger and of shelter, and even in the farthest reaches where the darkness is most oppressive, I know that I am not away from friends.”

Chastened, Gimli fell silent for a moment.  He watched Legolas move again: the graceful gait of one who could switch between being predator and prey, and he realized that this motion must not be something unique to Legolas.

“It is not a beauty that I would choose,” he said at last, “as one bred to earth and stone, I think the simple beauty of Lothlorien is easier for me to appreciate.  But I hear your love for your home in your words, and I am glad for you that you may find a piece of home here.”

At those last words, Legolas started.  “I did not even think,” he said haltingly.  “You are alone here, even as I am among the Fellowship, but now as I see an elven home that reminds me of the darkness in my own, you had to witness a great city of your people fallen into darkness.”  He stopped moving, and laid a hand on Gimli’s wrist; Gimli could feel his pulse beating, light and quick.  “I am sorry that I hesitated to enter Mor – no. What was it called?  The dwarven name, that the Lady knew.”

“Khazad-dum.”  Gimli felt his own pulse speed up, even as the ever-present loss swept down on him once more.  It was a strange mixture of bittersweetness and sorrow: Legolas had asked him of his kin before, and he had given him stories: his memories of Balin, of his uncle Oin, of the other distant kinsmen who had gone.  But he had told only small, personal stories: the little presents his uncle had brought him when he was a child, to win his favor; Balin’s particular gift for storytelling.  Legolas had not asked of Khazad-dum, and Gimli had not thought he would want to hear.

“Khazad-dum,” Legolas repeated slowly, starting to walk again. His accent was heavy and his voice halting, but Gimli’s heart flooded with the same warmth as when the Lady had spoken the words more correctly.  “I did not realize the loss that you must have felt there, beyond the people who visited.  And I am sorry that you have had nothing of dwarven beauty to ease the pain of that wound.”

“You have no fault in that,” Gimli said.  “And you were not the only one who was hesitant to enter the mines.  I had my own fears, though I managed to suppress them with enough optimism.  But – I thank you for your sympathy.  It does my heart good.”

“I am glad,” said Legolas softly.  “And now, though I have nothing of dwarven beauty to offer you, here is a sight that will hopefully be a further balm.  Behold!”

He swept out an arm and stepped out of the way, and Gimli could not hold back a gasp.

Legolas had led him to a part of the forest he had never been: farther out than the tree at the heart where the Lady resided, farther than the Fellowship’s cozy grove.  The trees had grown a bit sparser as they walked (only noticeable because before they had been so thick), and now they stepped out into a clearing.  Gimli had not noticed it with the weight of their conversation, but the rushing sound of water suddenly swept into his ears and he realized they had been walking along a small stream, which had expanded into a pool.

The pool was broad and calm, with only a small section of white water where the stream emptied into it. But from there the water flowed out into many tinier streams, leaving the current in the pool mild and gentle. Flat white stones gleamed along the shallow edges, but the bottom appeared to drop off fairly steeply into a depth that Gimli could not see.

Or perhaps he could not see the bottom because of the glorious sight on the surface.  The pool was in such a place that it reflected the full moon perfectly, a round silver-white circle filling the center, little eddying ripples swirling playfully along.  The clearing was round as well, ringed with trees silver in the night, and their branches waved in reflection, crowning the beacon of the moon, sprinkled with stardust.

Gimli did not know how long he spent staring at the sight, but when he came back to himself, he realized that Legolas was stealing little glances in his direction, and the air had suddenly grown heavy and quiet.  “Does it please you?” he asked shyly.

“Legolas,” Gimli said, and then found that he knew not what else to say.  Finally he settled on, “It is as glorious as you promised.”  Another beat of that strangely heavy silence, and then Gimli clapped him on the upper arm: nice and hearty, to bring back the ease.  “I do not even regret being roused in the middle of the night to see it.”

Legolas smiled, tentative at first, and then bright and joyful.  “I am glad to hear it,” he said.  “I plan to come again by day, to see what it looks like under sunlight and gold, but as we are here now – what would you say to a midnight swim?” He glanced at Gimli sideways.  “Race into the water?”

Gimli had never given thought to how quickly elves might be able to strip, but if he had, this would have belied his imaginings.  Before he even had a chance to respond, Legolas’s chest was bare, and even as Gimli blinked in astonishment, the rest of his clothing had fallen to the ground.  While he tried to get the breath to say something, Legolas was dashing across the clearing.

Despite his own discomfiture, Gimli could not but admire the long line of him as he dove into the water: he did not even seem to jump, but rather flow from standing to a horizontal line in the air, and then arc gracefully down to enter the water without even a splash.

He surfaced after a moment, laughing; he raised a hand and water poured off of it as he pushed hair back from his face.  A few ripples expanded out from where he was, breaking the reflection of the moon, but his hair was so black and slick when wet that it mirrored the moon’s silver.  “I win,” he teased.

Gimli could only stare.

“Come in, Gimli,” Legolas urged him.  “It is shallow enough in places for you to stand, and the _feel_ ” – He tipped his head back, hair streaming down his neck.  “It is like bathing in the moonlight itself.”

“Legolas – I” – Gimli spluttered.  The Fellowship had stopped to bathe at enough rivers that he had been forced to break from at least some of his people’s preferences for privacy, and he wasn’t self-conscious about his body, but – that was not the same as an indulgent midnight swim in the middle of winter, with a companion he had only just begun to really know.  “I – It is cold!” was the only thing he managed to say, in the end.  “You elves may be able to walk on snow and withstand freezing temperatures, but I am not built for such things!”

The reason, but perhaps not all the reason.  Legolas swam to the edge and laid his arms over the stones.  Gimli saw his legs splay out behind him, just under the surface of the water, and blinked, before focusing on Legolas’s face – which was full of remorse.  “I am sorry, Gimli,” he said.  “I forgot.”  His arms tensed, and then he hauled himself out of the pool with the roar of displaced water.  Standing on the edge, he wrung out his long black hair and a stream spilled back into the pool, and then he came to sit beside Gimli.  “If you have the patience to sit while I dry off, we can go back to where your bed is – I did not think to bring warmer clothing, or a blanket” –

“I am not so cold,” Gimli said, suddenly regretful.  The ease was gone, suddenly, and he did not need to be coddled!  “I do not mind sitting here – just do not ask me to go into the water!”

“Of course.  Again, I am sorry.”

Legolas sat beside him, and Gimli could feel the chill coming off of him, as though the water had actually changed his body temperature.  He made no move to put his clothing on, and Gimli hesitated.  It was in him to tease the elf for his lack of decency – but he also knew enough already to know that such a jest would only send the elf into more fits of worry and apology.  And though they were not, perhaps, close enough yet that Gimli felt comfortable to be near him unclad, they were close enough that he did not wish to set their friendship back that one more step.

His own comfort was a small enough sacrifice for that.

They were silent for another moment, and then Legolas turned towards him.  “Perhaps while we sit here,” he ventured, “you might tell me tales of Kha – Khazad-dum?  Of the glory of your people’s former city?  I may not be able to see it, but I can give a try at appreciating dwarvish beauty?”

And Gimli hesitated.  Such secrets he should not tell, most likely: not to an elf, not to this elf, son of the king who had imprisoned his own father.

But Legolas’s face was so open, so hopeful, shining with water-drops and bathed in the moonlight.  Their friendship might be new still, but something in Gimli wanted to drop his walls.  Wanted to trust Legolas, the way Legolas had already come to trust him.

“Yes,” he said at last.  “Yes, as long as you wish to listen.”

“I would be honored,” said Legolas.


End file.
